There’s a hollow void in the sky tonight. It’s swallowing us up, stealing our dreams. It isn’t expansive, but it is empty and everything we hope for gets lost within. The stars aren’t out tonight, but it is only me, cold and alone, who looks upon the great sea above me for answers. I’m missing you and it is evident that this feeling will encompass every piece of me until, by some miracle of God, I am able to forget. Then and only then, piece by piece, will I be whole again. For without you, I am a broken puzzle.

Tell me why you left me like this, with nothing but my thoughts and my old, tattered dreams of us together. It is impossible to rid myself of all these feelings, of all this sorrow that weighs down on me like bricks sinking to the ocean’s sandy bottom. I see…

1. Having a crush on someone

I don’t know how people get others to fall in love with them because whenever I have a crush on someone, I am an absolute idiot. I am the worst possible version of myself. I wish at certain points I could just whisper into my crush’s ear and be like, “Please just stick around. I swear I get better. Hold on just one more second!” I can’t tell someone a joke, be funny or interesting because all my brain power is going towards falling in love with them. There’s, like, no room left to be charming. Meanwhile, if I DON’T like someone, I’m on top of my game because there’s no pressure. Why is it always like this? On top of behaving like a fool, you’re also constantly suffering from analysis paralysis and reading into every little thing your crush is doing. “He said he…

11. You finally feel hopeful about the future again [tc-mark]

Take a bath. While bathing, listen to shitty 80s glam, but make sure you keep the radio your iPhone more than an arm’s reach away from the tub.

Eat some fruits and vegetables. Nothing like some fructose and greens to help yank the wrench out of your otherwise shitty day.

Write an awful one-act play. Then read it aloud. Make sure to distinguish between characters by changing the timbre of your voice. If still sad: drink.

Get dressed up, and prepare a long & drawn-out meal for yourself with multiple courses. If you’re an awful cook, go out to eat (but make sure you’re overdressed for the occasion — this is important — you want to feel like best goddamn looking person in the room).

Shave your face, legs, or genitalia.

Go to the library and people-watch until you’ve discovered their tics/eccentricities.

1. “He loved me. He loved me, but he doesn’t love me anymore, and it’s not the end of the world.” – Jennifer Weiner

2. “Sometimes we must undergo hardships, breakups, and narcissistic wounds, which shatter the flattering image that we had of ourselves, in order to discover two truths: that we are not who we thought we were; and that the loss of a cherished pleasure is not necessarily the loss of true happiness and well-being.” – Jean-Yves Leloup

3. “To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose is the next best.” – William Makepeace Thackeray

4. “For a long time, the fact that I was divorced was the most important thing about me. And now it’s not. Now the most important thing about me is that I’m old.” – Nora Ephron

1. A lack of commitment.I’ve mentioned it before, but the unwillingness to be all in has created the “talking to” phenomenon. Are you talking to anyone? Of course, we talk to lots of people, but dating with an actual boyfriend/girlfriend label and loyalty is different. There’s no comfort or ability to fully trust a promise-less fling. Living in such a vague, foggy dating world puts everyone at risk to have their heartbroken. We search for true love and instead find false hope.

2. Blasting every negative moment of your relationship on social media. The angry Facebook status telling everyone about your breakup, followed by a lovey-dovey one revealing your reconciliation seven hours later is beyond unnecessary. After a while, everyone will hate the thought of your relationship being a thing that exists. This goes for any association you carry in life. If you publically displayed every qualm you’ve…

1. Sometimes we exchange a like for a like. Have you ever been told that so-and-so-who-you-barely-ever-noticed-before has a crush on you, then suddenly you felt a mutual liking for them? Well the attraction might be reciprocated based mostly on the fact that you feel complimented by their feelings, and automatically relate those pleasant, positive thoughts to so-and-so-who-you-barely-ever-noticed-before.

2. Symmetrical faces are at an advantage. People love them some straight, well aligned eyes, lips and noses. Symmetry tends to be found attractive because it’s basically all perfect and junk, which is directly related to excellent genes and the potential to create beautiful babies. I know there are more eloquent ways to word that, but the point is that those with flawlessly proportioned faces tend to catch quite a few eyes. Don’t fret, my fellow crooked-structure-faced friends, there are plenty of highly enjoyed asymmetrical faces. Who, you ask? For example…

I like to kiss people and I know you like to do it too. After all, making out is one of the greatest joys one can have in life. You can kiss anyone really. You can meet a stranger and start to kiss them immediately. In fact, it happens all the time with drunk people in nightclubs. They see someone they find attractive on the dance floor and think to themselves, “I must feel that person’s tongue and face. Right. Now.” And so they do. They do it in front of everyone. They eat their face and then leave it decaying on the dance floor. We think we don’t owe someone anything when we only kiss them. It’s the stuff that comes later that truly complicates things. This is actually not very true. You owe someone something the second you lock eyes with them.

1. You believe your life will begin once you have the love of your life. You believe in happily ever after in the way that you think once you find that special someone you will feel fulfilled, content and joyous every day. Love is fulfilling, contentment and joyousness, but it is certainly not guaranteed to always be that.

2. You’re dreaming of your wedding and the life you’ll have with someone, and you’re just looking for someone to fit into that role, not the other way around. You are fixated on what the relationship can do for you, not what you can give to it. We get into muddy waters when it comes to making checklists for what our significant others should and shouldn’t be. More often than not, it leaves us completely unfulfilled, disappointed or heartbroken, and the other person with a serious inferiority complex.